A Sunrise Quilt for my Sister

This quilt was made for my sister, Paula who is my best friend and partner in crime when it comes to quilting. In many ways, Paula is my hero…she is extremely courageous, gritty and fearless. I wanted to make her a really special quilt…and this is it.

This quilt measures 72″ X 60″ and I used the Scrappy Trip Around the World pattern. I decided to finally cut into my stash of voiles – fabrics that I have been collecting for about 3 years whenever I saw them on sale, or saw a print I couldn’t live without. Most of them are from Anna Maria Horner collections, but there are also some Valorie Wells prints in there. I controlled the scrappiness of this quilt by making sure that the dark blues always ran down the center of every block…otherwise, I simply paired fabrics any old way.

Voile is not all that hard to work with if you control some of the “floatiness” of it – I used light spray starch which really helped with the cutting part of things. I also used a very fine, Microtex needle.

The back is Shannon Minky Dimple Dot in Dusty Rose which I ordered from The Minky Boutique (I first ordered samples in order to chose the color – this shop is very easy to work with and offers discounts on purchases of 5 yards or more).

The binding is a Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton which picks up the blues, purples and pinks in the quilt top.

I used the embroidery function on my sewing machine to craft the label, then hand stitched it on the back with perl cotton thread.

The quilting on this is straight lines following the diagonals and diamond patterns from the front (you can see it best by looking at the photo of the back of the quilt).

The batting is 100% silk for a great drape and lots of warmth.

My goal was to create a super soft, cuddly and warm quilt that represented something extraordinary. A friend of mine told me it reminded her of a sunrise when I first showed her the photos of this quilt on my design wall…and so that was my inspiration for the name of this quilt!

I was able to deliver this to Paula in person on my trip back to New England…so of course I’m going to show you some photos of that…